Academics at De Montfort University are researching the nature and impact of a new kind of literacy: the sharp end of modern communication known as "transliteracy". The term describes the ability to read, write and interact on a range of platforms. Think of the media's teenage stereotype, a young girl watching Hollyoaks on television while simultaneously discussing its plotlines on the social networking site Facebook, listening to music on MySpace and texting her friend to discuss home study.

The term "transliteracy" was coined by Alan Liu, a professor in the English department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, whose research on the subject is being carried out across University of California campuses. The project will establish working groups from across academic disciplines to study online reading and shared technology.

At De Montfort, Sue Thomas, a professor of new media, is more interested in the impact that transliteracy is having on higher education and pedagogy. In these terms, many academics are in essence illiterate, says Thomas. Most would admit it, even taking a certain pride in their part-removal from the world of e-communication. This matters if they find their teaching relationship with hyper-transliterate students breaking down because of an inability to communicate fully with one another.
—Hannah Fearn, "Grappling with the digital divide," The Times Higher Education Supplement, August 14, 2008

According to Penley, we need to see video images and text messages as an evolution rather than a devolution of literacy.

Penley's colleague Alan Liu, an English professor, agreed: "Our kids are reading and writing like crazy," he said.

In 2005, Liu launched a UC-wide project, Transliteracies project, which has scholars studying the evolving definition of literacy in the digital age.

Among the things that make online reading unusual is that it adds a social dimension to literacy, Liu said. "We're researching what reading and writing is becoming if you redefine it to include this whole, thick social zone."

"We need to learn from them (teens)," Penley said. "transliteracy is not starting from, 'It's bad,'but, 'What is reading in the digital era?'"
—Kim Lamb Gregory, "Pages turn to the next chapter of youth literacy," Ventura County Star, August 19, 2007

The Transliteracies 2005 conference (Conversation Roundtables on Online Reading) assembles a distinguished group of theorists and practitioners from the humanities, arts, social sciences, computer science, and industry to talk about the fate of reading in the "new media" age. The conference initiates the Transliteracies research initiative.
—"Research in the Technological, Social, and Cultural Practices of Online Reading," June 17, 2005